Hypnotherapy For Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

A specialized new treatment using hypnotherapy for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is achieving great success.

For a long time, the gold standard in dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been exposure therapy. ‘Exposure therapy’ means challenging the sufferer by exposing them gradually to their fear, starting with small stimuli and building up.

Exposure therapy can be an appropriate approach to other conditions, but with PTSD it can be a long, emotionally painful process with unreliable success rates. Given the seriousness of the type of incident that triggers PTSD, being asked to re-engage with it can be traumatic. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of thing that PTSD sufferers want to avoid, given that they are constantly reliving their experience through flashbacks and nightmares.

Now there is a new approach, known as ‘The Rewind Technique’. This approach allows PTSD sufferers to process their experience in a ‘dissociated’ way – in effect making the experience harmless and impersonal. Once this has been achieved, the memory becomes just that – a memory, instead of an experience that dominates your life as you constantly relive it. Like other memories, this one will fade.

When undertaken by a hypnotherapist, the Rewind Technique is relaxing and comfortable to experience. There is no fear and no pain, no matter how traumatic the inciting incident. In fact, using this technique, your therapist doesn’t need to know the details of the incident or incidents that have triggered your PTSD.

Not only is the technique more pleasant for the patient than traditional methods, the results are impressive and permanent.

Statistics on Use of the Rewind Technique NOVA, part of Barnardo’s, carried out a four-year study of 47 people using the Rewind Technique: • 26 of the 47 would have met the criteria for PTSD • After using the Rewind Technique, not one of the 47 met the criteria for PTSD The Human Givens Institute studied 30 people and asked them to rate the Rewind Technique: • Before treatment, the study participants rated their well being as an average 12 out of 50 • Seven to ten days after treatment, the average score was 30.3 out of 50 • Three to six months later, the average score was 32.2 • Increase: 167.4% on original ratings